Joseph Wulfsohn at Fox News pointed out that Conservative Twitter had a lot of fun with PolitiFact on Thursday when Bill McCarthy didn't see the double meaning in his tweet "PolitiFact is hiring! Come join our misinformation team."
Poor Bill. If he'd only tweeted "misinformation-fighting team."
PolitiFact is hiring! Come join our misinformation team: https://t.co/EmBkRo23KO
— Bill McCarthy (@billdmccarthy) July 29, 2021
That was too much fun to avoid dunking on the right, including our own Brittany Hughes of MRCTV:
No truer words https://t.co/sEyFU0ssTF
— Brittany Hughes (@RealBrittHughes) July 29, 2021
Fact check: true. https://t.co/wssayXv79P pic.twitter.com/524NoJ38Dq
— Ted Cruz (@tedcruz) July 29, 2021
We’re going to need you to be more specific about precisely which department is hiring. https://t.co/rpvKdMG46j
— Mollie (@MZHemingway) July 29, 2021
“Misinformation team” is unintentionally correct. https://t.co/T2dbMH3Snx
— Mark Hemingway (@Heminator) July 29, 2021
I added:
Guys! Guys! He meant to say "come join our nonpartisan team insuring accuracy in political speech."
— Tim Graham (@TimJGraham) July 29, 2021
But this is funnier. They're not so much a "misinformation team" as a "Democratic Party defense squad." https://t.co/4PvAcmtEI2
In the first 100 days of Biden, we found PolitiFact leaped to defend Biden against "misinformation" eight times as often as they fact-checked the president.
Look no further than their "Pants On Fire" category. Most of the "liars" accused there are from Facebook messages and viral videos, but some are politicians or party organizations. From May 1 through July 30, there are 13 "Pants on Fire" rulings on politicians/parties, and there are 12 on Republicans and one on a Democrat.
The Democrat is Terry McAuliffe. The Republicans are Donald Trump (four on how he really won, etc.), Eric Trump, Sen. Ted Cruz. Rep. Kevin McCarthy, Rep. Lauren Boebert, Rep. Andrew Clyde, Rep. Matt Rosendale, and Rep. Rodney Davis. There's one for the "Texas GOP" account.
President Biden doesn't have one "Pants on Fire" in 2021.
When you click on McCarthy's link, PolitiFact does claim to be "nonpartisan."
This position is meant for someone with less than three years of working experience. We are committed to diversity and an inclusive environment for people of all backgrounds. We especially encourage members of traditionally underrepresented communities to apply for this position.
PolitiFact won the Pulitzer Prize for its coverage of the 2008 presidential election and is part of the Poynter Institute for Media Studies. Our mission is to hold all politicians accountable for the claims they make, and to provide voters nonpartisan, accurate information.
Light the pants!
Obviously, they are exactly as nonpartisan as Chuck Todd, who dismissed studies of fact-checker tilt like ours in an interview this week, and argued:
We should have fought back better in the mainstream media. We shouldn’t [have] accepted the premise that there was liberal bias. We should have defended. I hear the attacks on fact checkers where they “fact-check Republicans six times more than they fact-check Democrats.”
Yeah. Perhaps the Republicans are being factually incorrect more often than the Democrats.
